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TIME cover by JOE KLEIN, “The New Greatest Generation: How young war veterans are redefining leadership at home: Dale Beatty, Wes Moore, Liz McNally, John Gallina and Paul Rieckhoff served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now they’re helping rebuild America.” Cover image http://politi.co/oOAk8X

--Managing Editor Richard Stengel, “Lessons in Leadership”: “Joe Klein started talking to me about this week’s cover story almost a year ago, when he had just returned from an embed in Afghanistan. He had been powerfully impressed by the young service members he had met and believed that they represented the very best of what America had to offer. He sought out veterans who had returned to the U.S. and began following their work. The skills they had developed in war seemed perfectly suited to fixing problems here at home.”

THE WAY TO WIN -- “pool report 6,” by the WashTimes’ Dave Boyer and WSJ’s Laura Meckler: “The president made an unadvertised stop at Galesburg High School in Galesburg, IL, at 3:20 p.m. CDT, where he met students, watched the football team practice and posed for photos with kids. … After watching at least a dozen plays in the warm sunshine, the team was called together and the president approached them on the field. ‘Take a knee,’ Mr. Obama said, and the team knelt before him. ‘You guys look good out there. I know you guys are going to have a great season.’ … The coach then led the players in the team motto, two claps in unison followed by their shout of ‘Win the Day!’ The president said, ‘Win the day. That's my motto every morning, man, absolutely. I like that.’”

WELCOME TO MARTHA’S VINEYARD – Ira Stoll, editor and founder of FutureOfCapitalism.com, emails: “I've been up here since Sunday night and can advise the traveling press corps and the president and his family: 1. new this year (opened in June): http://7afoods.com/ , on the twitters @7aFoods, in the old Garcia's spot behind Alley's General Store in West Tisbury and very near the presidential place across the line in Chilmark. Excellent cinnamon muffins and oatmeal, Stumptown Coffee. 2. Seth's Pond closed Wednesday owing to high bacteria counts following rain earlier in the week, diverting those in the know to Old Ice House Pond.

TOP TALKER -- Rolling Stone, “Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes? A whistleblower claims that over the past two decades, the agency has destroyed records of thousands of investigations, whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals,” by Matt Taibbi: “For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files, … the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation …

“With a few strokes of the keyboard, the evidence gathered during thousands of investigations – ‘18,000 ... including Madoff,’ as one high-ranking SEC official put it during a panicked meeting about the destruction – has apparently disappeared forever into the wormhole of history. … Many of the destroyed files involved companies and individuals who would later play prominent roles in the economic meltdown of 2008.” http://bit.ly/nK1wYI

--TOUGH CROWDS: According to White House transcripts, the president received applause 217 times over the four town halls (not counting applause for several questioners). The president drew laughter 48 times.

TOP TWEET -- @CarrieNBCNews: One thing @GovernorPerry likes is tweeting with multiple "!" pts. Total number of tweets since announce: 9. Number of exclamation points: 11

THE PRESIDENT’S DAY: “In the morning, the President will meet with Senior Economic Advisors in the Oval Office. … Later in the morning, the President will meet with his National Security Team in the Situation Room. … the afternoon, the President will travel to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. … Following the arrival at the Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, the President will travel via Marine One to Martha’s Vineyard.”

OBAMA’S JOBS PLAN – Glenn Thrush, in Alpha, Ill.: OMB Director Jack Lew Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and top economic aides Gene Sperling and Jason Furman have been trying to come up with new ideas in collaboration with outside experts and executives … The new plan, ordered up by Obama right after the debt ceiling debacle, will be revenue neutral and the administration ‘plans to pay for every penny of it’ with offset savings, a senior administration official said.” http://bit.ly/mRhNLa

--WashPost 2-col. lead, “Obama to push stimulus plan”

--POTUS, at a town hall in Atkinson, Ill.: “I will be presenting before this joint committee a very detailed, specific approach to this problem that allows us to grow jobs right now, provide folks who need help the help they need, and still gets our deficit and debt under control.”

--Chicago Tribune lead story, “Obama’s jobs blueprint aims to hire and rewire: President said to be mulling billions for school refits, tax breaks.” http://trib.in/nEWD71

THE NARRATIVE – “Phony war lays 2012 battle lines,” by Stephen Collinson, in Alpha, Ill.: “In a phony war fought across empty plains and crowded airwaves, President Obama and the Republicans who want his job have sketched the thematic battle lines of the 2012 election. … [I]n an explosive late summer flurry, Obama and leading Republicans Mitt Romney and Rick Perry tested attack lines … and made an early pitch for wavering voters. …

“Obama, waving from an armored Secret Service bus, rolled into the fray for the first time for real this week, though the White House rejected claims the jaunt through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois was a taxpayer-funded junket. After seeing his authority splintered by Republicans in a debt showdown, Obama appeared to draw new energy outside Washington … [p]opping into coffee shops, licking ice creams and halting for wholesome heartland photo-ops.”

CABINET MEMBER TAKES SWING AT PERRY – “Obama’s Education Secretary Says Perry’s Schools Left Behind,” by Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev: “Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Texas’s school system ‘has really struggled’ under Governor Rick Perry, a Republican candidate for president, and the state’s substandard schools do a disservice to children. ‘Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,’ Duncan said on Bloomberg Television’s ‘Political Capital With Al Hunt’ airing Aug. 19-20. ‘I feel very, very badly for the children there.’”

WELCOME TO THE WORLD – “BREAKING: Introducing Timothy Huiyao Bennett … Brian Bennett and Anne Tsai Bennett are delighted to introduce Timothy Huiyao Bennett. Timothy nailed the deadline. He was born at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. at 1:57 pm on August 17th, his exact due date. He is 21 and one half inches long and weighs a lucky 8 pounds even. Anne is resting comfortably and craving sushi and champagne. Born in the year of the rabbit, Timothy’s Chinese name, Huiyao, means ‘glorious leap.’ His parents are already racing to keep up with him.”

VOTE FOR ASHLEY: Ashley Bush of Redeemer Arlington is a finalist in CNN’s songwriting contest for Robin Meade’s HLN “Morning Express.” Winner flies to Atlanta to record the new theme song. Hear “Ashley and Amanda” here. http://www.cnn.com/riseandshine

POPPING ON THE LEFT -- Huffington Post, “Obama Campaign Staffer Sends Out Email Bashing Paul Krugman And The ‘Firebagger Lefty Blogosphere,” by Amanda Terkel: “On the evening of Aug. 1, just after Congress passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling, Obama for America (OFA) New Mexico State Director Ray Sandoval sent an email to supporters with the subject line, ‘Please take 5 minutes to read this, Please.’ … The blog post that Sandoval thought was important enough to share with others harshly condemns Krugman and progressive bloggers who have been critical of Obama.” http://huff.to/qUqZYs

--FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher: “I know the goal is to attract the much-prized Independent for 2012. … What exactly does OFA think they stand to gain by ridiculing Krugman as a ‘political rookie,’ a hysterical ‘fanatic’ and an ‘idealogue’? Do they think they hold so much sway with liberals that they can discredit Krugman and thus neutralize his criticism? This smacks more of narcissism and personal vendetta than any sound political ‘strategy.’” http://bit.ly/qgPOeu

WISCONSIN POST-GAME -- “Wisconsin coda: Here’s to ‘losing’ more in 2012,” by Markos Moulitsas: “Republicans are insisting that they still won, because they didn't lose as badly as they could've. And sure, we didn't take back the Wisconsin Senate. But if we continue to ‘lose’ like this, winning 33 percent of Republican districts while holding our own, then Nancy Pelosi will get her gavel back with a 272-160 House majority.” http://bit.ly/oWOVkB

BACHMANN -- “Bachmann’s bouncers: Unnecessary roughness,” by Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin: “In less than two months since entering the 2012 race, Bachmann’s campaign staff has become embroiled in at least five unusually hostile encounters with the traveling media marked by pushing, shoving and, in one instance, the allegation of a threat of violence to a reporter. … A foreign reporter also alleged to POLITICO this week that an aide threatened to break his arm — an allegation the Bachmann campaign denied.” http://bit.ly/qIhrc2 Video of the incidents: http://bit.ly/mRimWV

PERRY:

--“Pondering Perry’s Electability,” by Nate Silver: “Nowadays, … Republicans in Texas essentially never lose a statewide race, so the fact of Mr. Perry’s re-election alone does not tell us all that much. Instead, we need some kind of a control group. One choice is simply to look at how other Republicans running for statewide office in Texas fared in the years that Mr. Perry was running. … Over all, Mr. Perry has won his three elected terms with an average victory margin of 13 percentage points. That’s certainly not a disaster, but it lags the 19-point margin for other Texas Republicans running in those years. In the most recent two elections, Mr. Perry was losing quite a few voters who were voting for Republican for almost every other office.” http://bit.ly/rtYW8i

--“The HPV files: In emails, Perry mostly absent,” by Ben Smith, with Byron Tau: “Perry himself was almost entirely absent from the implementation of this key decision. His own emails appear in only one thread in the entire 700 page cache: On February 6, 2007, as the initiative was rolling out, he received a supportive email from a friend, which he forwarded to his wife, Anita, under the heading, ‘fyi.’ … By the time the emails begin in August of 2006, the decision seems a fait accompli, and staffers never refer to Perry's own views on specifics.” http://politi.co/q93eaO

--NYT A12, “Day After Fed Uproar, Perry Tones It Down,” by Ashley Parker: “Voters in New Hampshire on Wednesday expecting to meet the man with a blustery confidence and down-home twang were greeted with a far more subdued and measured campaigner, one who stayed mostly on message about getting “America working again” and refused to answer questions from reporters. … And at the Politics and Eggs breakfast, many of his usual applause lines were met with only tepid applause, if that.” http://nyti.ms/ouoVfv

--Houston Chronicle, “Close-up: Texas under Perry: Health care falters in state,” by Patricia Kilday Hart and Gary Scharrer: “With 26 percent of its citizens lacking health insurance, Texas ranks the worst in the nation for health care coverage. Premiums are well above the national average. The number of Texans who qualify for Medicaid has grown 80 percent since 2001. While Perry trumpets the state's balanced budget, he fails to mention that lawmakers this year cut $805 million from doctors serving Medicaid patients, and that they also postponed $4 billion in Medicaid costs for payment in the next budget cycle.” http://bit.ly/oVOAJ8

SPORTS BLINK -- SLAM’s Tvzi Twersky posts an excerpt from Shaquille O’Neal’s new book, Shaq Uncut: “In early March some of the guys went to the museum of Fine Arts for a fund-raiser and got to hang with President Barack Obama. Everyone was a little bit in awe. The President turns to Ray, points at Rondo, and says, ‘Hey, Ray, why don’t you teach this kid how to shoot?’ Everyone starts laughing. … KG told me he saw the look on Rondo’s face and the kid was devastated, embarrassed. Dissed by the President, even though I’m sure Obama didn’t mean any harm. Rondo smiled and went along with all of it, but KG told me he could see it in his eyes. It bothered Rondo. It killed him. … I think it was a real jolt to hear the outside perception of a basketball fan who happens to be the President of the United States. It messed with his mind.” http://bit.ly/nstyUo

DESSERT -- JON STEWART, last night, interviewing Michael Steele: “Is this now a changing of the Republican guard if Rick Perry becomes the nominee?”

Readers' Comments (4)

Just heard that inflation is on the rise. Of course, my office manager at work told me that too....and she didn't need an MBA or Harvard PHD. She probably doesn't quite know why. She just knows, "It is!" Ahhh...the wisdom of the uneducated. Her response to inflation? Buy only what is necessary. Government could (...but won't) take a lesson. Now...I've heard a few definitions of inflation, but the best on record is when the government prints money without offsetting productivity/GDP increases. That has the net effect of adding more cash into a system that has the same or less 'stuff' to buy. Viola! Inflation! I, of course, 'Have' an MBA....but still...it confuses me sometimes. I'm a simple MBA. I only finance things I have an immediate need for. Usually, they support or produce added revenue. I do 'not' go to my clients and ask for a pay increase in order to fund my foibles. Doesn't work that way anywhere other than the Government. I like to pay cash when I can. I change plans that don't produce (Likewise, I fire people that don't.). It sucks firing people. If you never have, believe me....it's 'second' hardest on me and my business (It's first hardest on them, of course.). I'd rather not do it, but it's what grown-ups do. The Prez, who pretends he knows everything, doesn't get that. I know he's going to pitch 'STIMPAK2' in pretty short order. How else can he generate jobs? He won't cut the Cap Gains tax. He won't cut Corporate Tax. Seems inimical to changes in the tax code. Won't fight unions (...and buddy, let me tell you....I have first person experience that they suck!). Won't drill for oil (.....but to hear him speak, you'd think he's on the board of Standard Oil). He won't cut environmental regulation. Won't involve himself in the water crisis in California (...some fish is in danger of extinction......so too is the American way of life. I vote, "Let the Fish Die!"). Won't help streamline building code/permit/regulation process. So what 'will' the P do? It boggles! He's looking down the barrel of a $15T debt number with more on the way. Grown-ups....like me...would be looking real hard at current benefits for Medicare, Social Security, even the military. As for me, I'd do even cuts. 5%, 10%.....anything to share the pain equally. If it really does 'take a village', how come it seems that only part of the village is working? Obama's answer to unemployment thus far has been 'Extend Benefits'. Let me tell you, I have lazy liberals in my family who know the precise date when their benefits run out (Michelle, you know who you are!), and will only go looking for work on or after that date. Seriously folks.......there's really and truly unlimited demand for free stuff....and the government simply does not get that concept (A Harvard PHD should!). Perhaps the P should have studied economics rather than law.

...and one more thing (Yeah...I do work....but I have a few spare minutes on my hands). Heard the P talking to farmers the other day. Sort of castigated one for not having his facts in order. I think the specific comment was, "Is there one specific piece of regulation you had in mind?" Of course, the farmer only knew what he had heard. If it was me, I'd have said, "Mr P, it's not what we 'know' you're doing that worrys me. it's what we don't know." That said, I'd have asked his Secretary of Agriculture (Who was present at the TownHall) what he had up his sleeve? What are the top 3 items on your 'to do' list? I think I'm on pretty safe turf (Pun intended) when I say Ag legislation probably isn't in the best interest of those actually 'engaged' in agriculture. Wanna bet me?

Arne might want to look out the window at the DC Schools. Texas is a very diverse and physically large state. 1300 school districts with 9000 schools. I am tired of the bigotry in Washington elites. Arne use your ideas and fix the schools in a 30 mile radius.